rowan.depomerai

I’d like to make an addendum to my Top Ten Videos You Should See post, a postscript, if you will. Check out this video from Playing For Change; it’s Stand By Me, as performed by a variety of street artists from around the world who’ve never met. This is great stuff – it sent a shiver down my spine. Support the project at Playing For Change.

Last week I shared with you 5 of my top 10 web videos you should watch. They ranged from the funny to the thought-provoking, and today I shall complete the set with another five.

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Since my life is dull, I look to the world at large for something interesting to share with you. And boy, there’s some interesting things out there. So please, come on a journey around some of my favourite web videos, from the funny to the inspiring to the downright odd.

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On Sunday night I was lucky enough to be at Jason Mraz’s concert at Hammersmith Apollo. As with the gig I attended last year, it was an amazing night full of energy and excitement. From the brilliant Song for a Friend as the opener to the closing Butterfly, the set was awesome, and while the much larger venue (compared to Cambridge’s The Junction where I saw him last year) meant we weren’t so close to the stage, we did get a more impressive light show. I was particularly impressed that Mr Mraz himself came on stage to introduce each of the warmup acts, rather than hiding backstage until his own set.

However, what was really different to last year was the crowd. Clearly it was a much larger group of people, but it was also much more diverse; younger and older, chavvier and posher. I certainly don’t begrudge Jason becoming more popular, god knows I think he deserves it. But I have to confess to just a little musical snobbery… some of the people at the gig will have been about 6 when Mraz’s first album was released, and I just couldn’t quite help wondering whether people who’ve only got into his music since the relative popularity of I’m Yours really count as fans.

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Here comes the third and final part of my series of posts about 10 days of intensive gig attendance I undertook at the end of last month. (Part 1 here and part 2 here). My friend Sarah and I went to see Jason Mraz at The Junction in Cambridge. OK, so the title is a bit misleading – Jason’s music is not exactly funk. But there’s definitely elements of funk, and I find Jason Mraz hard to categorise.

You’ve probably never heard of Jason Mraz (at least if you’re reading in the UK), though he’s aiming to change that soon I think. For the uninitiated, he’s an avocado farmer in California. Read the rest of this entry »